Buddhist Institute comes up in Palampur

Palampur: Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, today inaugurated a new Buddhist institute near here and consecrated a temple and stupas in the sprawling campus on the lap of majestic Dhauladhar ranges.

Besides, Dalai Lama, top Buddhist monks and prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile Samdong Rinpoche were present on unveiling of Dorzong Buddhist Monastic Institute at Jia, 15 kilometres from this town. The Tibetans living in exile around Palampur gathered in large numbers to greet their spiritual leader who led the monks in prayer at the temple before delivering his teachings on how to train one”s mind on spirituality.

The teachings were based on seven points to train the mind on the treatise by Atish Dipanker, a revered Bengali scholar and thinker. Later, addressing the gathering, he hoped that the institute would provide facilities for religious studies to scholars from bordering areas of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir as well as other countries to learn about Buddhism and help spread its message.

"Earlier students from Himachal Pradesh used to go to Tibet for higher learning but due to Chinese occupation and closure of many monasteries, this was not possible and hence the institute has been set up at Jia," he said.